Plex’s 5.0 Update Brings Welcomed Android TV Changes And Improvements

Plex is a tool that’s a staple in the cord cutting experience and always pushing into new territory with cool new features only available with a Plex Pass. It’s also an App that is all for sharing and being on every platform you can think of because why put limits on such an application, now it’s no Kodi but Plex is something more and different than what Kodi goes out and seeks to be. With both Android TV and Chromecast, they were one of the launch partners, and it just goes to show how a new platform shouldn’t be a limitation for this team of dedicated devs.

Anyway, the reason you’re hearing about Plex today is because of version 5.0 of their Android app is being released and rolled out to all users. With this release comes some significant change for all platforms but we’re going to focus on the TV-related side. First, the biggest of them all is Seek and skip improvements during playback. (Using D-pad, gamepad triggers, or OSD actions: single-click to short skip and long-press for fast seeking.) Second, they added a stop button to music controls, why this wasn’t here before is way beyond me but better late than never. Third, Plex now shows the app version number on the settings screen for reasons like seeing if you got automatically updated to the latest version. Fourth, the Playlist library no longer visible on home screen if there are no playlists, which for someone like me who doesn’t use them I’m glad as it cleans up the UI. Five and six are both bug fixes – “Rating no longer overlaps title on video preplay.” and “Enabling both the Refresh Rate Switching and Passthrough settings could cause playback issues.”

I’m glad to see the Plex app isn’t doing a one and done deal like some apps do where 1.0 is what you get and that’s it, deal with it. They’re continually improving the app and adding new things which is great and shows what the Android TV platform is capable of.

If you want to see the whole changelog read below and if you need the apk click here –> armv7a , x86 (Plex Pass Required).

NEW:
– Implemented our new sync technology to bring many improvements to Mobile Sync:
* Redesigned sync management screen.
* Playlists can now be synced!
* New incremental syncing makes operations much faster and more efficient.
* Search your synced content just like a regular server.
* We took the core of the Plex Media Server, shrank it down, and embedded it within the Android app. Your synced content will now benefit from all the rich browsing, discovery, and playback features it provides.
– Many improvements to “Search”, including a new UI, support for faster searches, and also for searching new types of content such as actors, directors or tracks.
– Move user email from Navigation Menu header to Settings.
– Several usability improvements to the Camera Upload settings screen.
– Highlight filter icon when sort or filters are not the default setting.
– [Android TV] Seek and skip improvements during playback. (Using D-pad, gamepad triggers, or OSD actions: single-click to short skip and long-press for fast seeking.)
– [Android TV] Add stop button to music controls.
– [Android TV] Show app version number on settings screen.
– [Android TV] Playlist library no longer visible on home screen if there are no playlists.
– [Fire TV] Add support for subscribing to Plex Pass within the app.

FIXES:
– The “Unwatched only” filter was visible in music and photo libraries.
– Switching to a different library would not reset the secondary filter on the “Filters” drawer.
– Modifying subtitle or audio streams quickly after starting playback could crash the app.
– Playing video files in some channels could lead to various different crashes.
– Indirect connections would be forgotten if the app was restarted.
– Creating smart playlists for filtered music or photos libraries no longer results in an empty list.
– [Android TV] Rating no longer overlaps title on video preplay.
– [Android TV] Enabling both the Refresh Rate Switching and Passthrough settings could cause playback issues.
– [Fire TV] Remove verbose logging during video playback, that could adversely affect performance on Fire TV Stick.
– [Fire TV] The Extras / Related button was incorrectly hidden sometimes.
– [Fire TV] Skipping Sign-In could lead to an error.
– [Fire TV] Bug fixes and minor style tweaks.
– [Fire TV] Updated translations.
– [Fire TV] Description of ‘Log to Device’ setting sometimes included an incorrect IP.